Pension managers target N20trn assets in 8-years

Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) across the country said they are expecting the pension assets to have risen to N20 trillion in the next eight years.

Eguarekhide Longe, chairman, Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) said this is achievable, taking into consideration, the rapid rate at which the fund is growing day by day, promising that, in the next eight years, the pension scheme would have recorded 30 million subscribers.

According to him, ‘the pension industry is looking at N20 trillion pension funds under management in the next eight years and 30 million subscribers.’

To achieve this, however, Longe said, the funds has to be invested in income- yielding projects, such that, the pension assets can be performing.

While debunking claims that PFAs don’t want to invest pension assets in infrastructure, he said the managers had requested the investment banking community to come out with products that abide with the investment guidelines in Pension Act, which operators can finance, noting that this has not been done.

“The fact is that there are ample provisions in the investment guidelines that allows for investment in projects, so to say, infrastructure, private equities and real estates, bonds, among others. But what has happened is not that the money is idle in the PFAs or that the fund managers have not looked for those projects. In truth, it is not their jobs to go and create projects, but we have actively sort the investment banking community to develop products that we can invest in.

“You all know there are real estate projects PFAs invested in. But we have bad experience with real estate investment trust. So, we have to be careful as to how we invest and deploy this fund. Now, we have investment provisions, if we find the right products, we will make this investment commitment,” he stressed.

Longe also pointed out that the managers would be happy to finance those amenities, but that, care must be taken not to invest pension fund in a project that will not regenerate it, saying, ‘if you put pension fund in a project that does not regenerate it, the money is gone and in many cases, as we have found, the project has not been delivered because it was not properly conceived.’

He said: “We have the money, the orientation to invest, we have spoken to government, we have meetings with the ministry of finance, where we have defined what can be done and that meeting also has investment professionals in it and we have already communicated what we inclined to do and explained the investment guidelines to the minister and investment banking community.

We are not sitting on the sideline, waiting for them to come back to us. We have constantly mounted pressure on them to bring the products. ”